


Over the Snow, Into the Night

by sdklr



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 07:33:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8835811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sdklr/pseuds/sdklr
Summary: Knockout finds himself stranded on the highway on a midwinter's night. Seasonal KOBD in a minor key.





	

Halfway between one town and the next, the weather got worse. It had been raining all evening, frigid and blinding, but now there was something mixed with the rain: fat cold semisolid gobs that smacked Knockout’s windshield like insults. He flicked them off in horror, but for every two he wiped away, four more would strike before the next pass of his wipers. The tunnel of night illuminated by his headlights became clouded with the stuff; it was getting thicker, more ragged, as though the sky were disgorging a payload of shredded upholstery. Tufts of it flocked his headlights and began to collect in the corners of his windshield; it formed a crusted mantle on his grille and melted coldly into the seams of his bodywork.

Deep within himself, Knockout twisted his mouth in a moue of disgust. He’d seen snow before, of course. From the vantage of the ship, he’d surveyed white mountaintops and frozen tundra and the creased expanse of glaciers at the poles of the earth. He understood it academically. He knew he was making a home on a world of water— more water than land, more water than could scarcely be believed. But nothing could have prepared him for the reality of it. Knockout remembered with vivid distaste the first puddle he drove through: cold splash on his undercarriage and the sudden certainty that he would die, perhaps that evening, of rust. Then came the rain. 

And now this.

Perhaps he could outrun it. This planet’s weather was so mercurial, seasons changing between one stretch of highway and the next. Surely if he went fast and far enough he’d outpace the storm, be back on clear tarmac, or at least back in the familiar rain.

He geared up. His tires slipped. Sick lurch sideways as his back end yawed. More power. He lost traction again. The road in front of him was disappearing under drifts and eddies of white, so that he could no longer see the painted yellow line that he’d kept so assiduously between his wheels. There was rough ground under his left tires; his whole frame vibrated; he was going off the road. A tremolo of panic fluttered through his sensornet and he did something stupid, something he mocked other motorists for doing when they should be gearing down. He braked. And immediately began to slide, back end swinging wide and pulling him broadside to the road. He was still going fast and now he was going sideways, spinning in a wide arc. Reflexively his wheels spun, scrambling for purchase and throwing up huge clods of snow, which was thick enough now to coat his treads. He lurched twice and then began to move forward again, slewing left and right.

The calculating, rational part of Knockout -– the part that rode shotgun while his machismo took the wheel -- coolly informed him that he would not be able to drive out of this. He would slide and skid until he rolled into a drift, where he’d transform out of reflex and his hollow metal body would fill up with snow. He needed a bridge.

Damn it all. Damn his joyrides, damn his recklessness. Damn this planet and its weather. Damn the excoriation he’d face for nearly crashing in a blizzard when he should have been on call. Damn Soundwave who was probably watching him this very moment, broadcasting his humiliation to the entire ship.

_Knockout to Nemesis._

He slowed almost to a standstill but then started forward again, afraid he’d get stuck if he stopped completely.

_Lock on to my coordinates; I need a bridge._

No answer. No groundbridge, either. A few anxious moments ticked by, silent but for the plap-plap-plap of the snow on his windshield.

_Knockout to Nemesis. Very funny. Bridge me now, or I’m not telling you where I keep the Bandaids._

Silence. Not even static, which might be expected in a storm. Just his own voice echoing hollowly in his audials. He snarled, feeling angry and abandoned and irrationally sorry for himself. Was nobody listening? Could they not hear him, not see he was in distress?

He’d try again in a few kliks. Perhaps he was passing through a dead zone. Or perhaps, he thought with a dawning, awful certainty, the snow itself had a dampening effect, nullifying the frequency on which he communicated. After all, what did they know about this planet and its weather? What did they know about _water_?

His tires lost their grip again. Anything above a crawl was too fast to maintain traction, but he couldn’t afford to slow down. It was clear even to Knockout, who knew nothing about seasons and storms, that this blizzard was going to bury him. Already his wheels were carving deep grooves in a sparkling inscrutability that may or may not be the road. He couldn’t see beyond the snowflakes that mobbed his headlights, which, he noted with alarm, were getting closer and closer to snow-level. In another hour he’d be swimming grille-deep, or he’d have to transform, opening his anatomy to the elements while risking a twenty-foot tumble to the ground: his tapered, elegant pedes could not be trusted to hold him any steadier than his four wheels could. Better to stay low and compact, digging even deeper trenches as he nosed blindly forward.

Then the ground beneath his front wheels fell away. He cried out as he tipped forward, hood plunging into soft horrible cold. A ditch, perfectly concealed by the fresh snow. He really was off the road.

Beyond indignation and truly frightened now, he called again into the night.

_Knockout to Nemesis. I need assistance!_

_Knockout to Nemesis!_

And then, pathetically:

_Breakdown!!_

His rear tires spun in the air for several seconds before he risked a half-transformation, releasing his arms from their protective huddle to push himself out of the ditch. Once on level ground, he snapped back into alt mode, but not before the blowing snow could pour into his seams, melting against his works and sending cold runoff into his deepest and most tender parts.

He didn’t even know which direction he was pointing anymore. Something -– the snow, the cold, his own blind panic -– had scrambled his navigation system. The magnetic pathways his kind could read as plain as writing had vanished from his senses; his compass spun lazily around the dial. He was alone, and lost, and in a kind of danger he couldn’t fathom because it was unlike any he’d been in before. His anger flared once more as his wheels skidded and lurched, feeding more snow through his grille. He was being buried, sure enough. 

_Damn it! Can’t anybody hear me? Damn you all! I need help!_

And then he heard it. A fat, chuckling rumble, muffled by the snow but still recognizable, as distinctive and familiar as his own vocalizer. The ground beneath his tires began to vibrate as the beat of another engine drew closer. Through his rearview mirror, lit by the red glow of his taillights, Knockout saw him materialize out of the snow: scarred grille and bull bar, handsome fenders caked and filthy with slush, vertical profusion of headlights like six eyes laughing at some private joke. Breakdown. Breakdown, Breakdown, _Breakdown!_

Knockout laughed to himself, giddy with relief. Breakdown had found him! They _had_ heard him after all! Perhaps the problem was not as bad as he originally feared; perhaps it was merely that he could transmit, but not receive.

Which meant he couldn’t tell whether or not Breakdown was hailing him. It didn’t matter. He honked his horn. Breakdown honked back, his wipers jiving cheerfully back and forth as though he were waving. Then with a roar of his engine he pulled alongside his partner. His huge field pressed against Knockout’s, warm and reassuring; Knockout sensed his simple good nature and the joy he took in his own strength, and this in turn made Knockout stronger, flooding him with a rush of love and gratitude that would have embarrassed him at any moment but now.

Gearing up again, Breakdown pulled ahead, driving in front of Knockout now. His thick treads made a meal of the snow, laying two wide tracks in which Knockout could drive with relative ease. And in this way they progressed, slowly but steadily, through the white expanse of the night.

It was only after they’d been travelling for several minutes that Knockout realized Breakdown was driving without lights. His plenitude of headlamps were dark, and the signals at his rear bumper glinted only in the reflected light of Knockout’s high beams. This puzzled Knockout, and for a moment he worried that the blizzard had damaged Breakdown’s wiring the same way it had compromised his own navigation and comms. But then he saw his partner’s good sense. Lights in this weather were useless: more than useless, dangerous. They caught the snow and not the road ahead, leading you on blindly with only a foot or two of visibility until you lost your wheels and crashed. Better to rely on your internal compass and navigation systems— provided they were still online, which Breakdown’s obviously were.

Still, there was something about Breakdown’s hulked and darkened form, coupled with the silence of their severed comms, that unsettled Knockout. Though the gap between his grille and Breakdown’s spare tire grew no wider, he felt as though his partner were about to slip out of sight, disappearing behind a curtain of snow and leaving Knockout alone again, more alone than he had ever been. 

He accelerated until he was only a foot or two from Breakdown’s rear bumper, feeling the warmth of his exhaust and inhaling his complex and familiar scent. He was with Breakdown. Breakdown would get them out of this. Breakdown would get them get them back to the ship, where they’d dry off and warm up and check each other over for damage: the same ritual with which they’d comforted each other since time before memory. He’d tell Breakdown how grateful he was to have him as a partner, tell him how much he loved his steadiness and his strength, the breadth of his shoulders and the bluntness of his fingertips, the way he’d bend at the waist so he could push the finial of his crest against Knockout’s, grey bezel to red spire, in a way that made Knockout shiver with need. Maybe Knockout wouldn’t tell him in words, but he had other ways of expressing his gratitude. 

On the road ahead of them was an eruption of light, and with it a tremendous rush of air and noise. Snow whipped up from the ground in stinging clouds and Knockout huddled behind Breakdown, trusting him to lead them into the bridge: the bridge he had called for, that had been waiting for him all along, if only he had been able to find it.

The light enveloped them, and then it dimmed. Under his tires Knockout felt smooth, dry metal, and into his audials filtered the deep subsonic thrum of the Nemesis’s engine. Almost convulsively he transformed, showering the floor with meltwater and slush. His joints were stiff from crouching in the cold and he flexed them with relief.

“Oh thank Primus!” he exclaimed, a trifle shakily. “Breakdown, I thought I was done f—“

He looked around him. Breakdown wasn't there. Other than himself and a lone vehicon pulling night duty at the groundbridge controls, the room was empty.

"Where did Breakdown go?” Knockout asked the vehicon.

“Breakdown, sir?” 

“Yes, Breakdown! You know. Hefty blue truck, dashing eye patch, likes to smash things? I followed him through the groundbridge.”

“You must be mistaken, sir. Breakdown didn’t come through the groundbridge.”

“You mean he’s still down there?” Knockout spun on reflex back to the darkened, deactivated bridge. “Power it up again!” 

The vehicon spoke carefully, with deference but also the conviction that he knew something Knockout did not. “Sir, there was only one signal down there-- yours. I picked up on your distress call but had trouble pinpointing your coordinates because of the blizzard. I opened the bridge as close to you as I could. It was lucky you found it, I guess.”

“ _Lucky_ ,” Knockout spat, impatient and irritated. “Luck had nothing to do with it. Breakdown deserves a medal. Without him, the ship would be without a trained medic right now.” He patted himself on the headlight.

“Well… I’m sure that’s true, sir,” the vehicon ventured warily. “But if someone helped you find the bridge, it wasn’t Breakdown. Breakdown’s on deployment right now, nowhere near where we picked you up.”

“Deployment?” said Knockout, advancing on the other bot. “What sort of deployment? Since when is he on deployment?”

"I don’t know the details, sir.” The vehicon backed up a step or two, spreading his palms defensively. “I just know I bridged him out of here a few hours ago, along with Dreadwing and Airachnid. Dreadwing said their mission would be short, but so far he hasn’t called for a bridge back.”

Knockout sighed, bewildered and exhausted and suddenly, inexplicably sad, as if something precious had slipped through his fingers and fallen to the floor. He was cold. There was a chill at his core that needed Breakdown to warm it, but of course he couldn’t tell the vehicon that. Instead he turned, speaking over his shoulder as he walked away.

“Well, when Breakdown comes back, tell him to find me.” He forced a lighthearted purr into vocalizer. “He can’t stay away all night.”

"Yes, sir. I will. Perhaps you should rest. You look tired, sir, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“I am tired, and I do mind. Goodnight.”

"Goodnight, sir.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was heavily inspired by Frederick Forsyth's classic Christmas ghost story, _The Shepherd_. If you have a spare half hour, treat yourself to Alan Maitland's equally classic recording of the story, found [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2_bLEqmBi0).


End file.
